


always make a lover feel like a fool

by amorremanet



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: But it's vague and more world-building than not, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gay Disaster Shiro (Voltron), Hunk (Voltron) & Lotor (Voltron) Friendship, Hunk (Voltron) Has Anxiety, Hunk (Voltron) is a Mess, I mean… There is some discussion of Not Fluffy subject matter?, Idiots in Love, It's not his fault that his abusive parents screwed him over with corrupted quintessnece, Lotor (Voltron) & Shiro (Voltron) Friendship, Lotor is a good boy who is trying his best okay, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Or that he got mid-key possessed by an entity that Shiro calls "Nyarlathotep", POV Alternating, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, Snark, The alterations being that the colony went very differently, Universe Alteration, Wingman Lotor (Voltron), mostly…… kinda……, ………kinda? that's basically his role here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 01:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15619473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: Hunk and Shiro made out while they were drunk. Shiro plans to let it go — until Hunk asks for help because he remembers kissing somebody, but he doesn’t remember who. Unfortunately, Shiro’s name is conspicuously absent from Hunk’s list of possible make-out partners. Of course, this can only mean that Hunk would be disappointed to learn the truth.Still, Hunk has asked for help, so Shiro’s going to help him. Sooner or later, somebody will cop to kissing Hunk, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meynara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meynara/gifts).



> Written for Mey as part of the VLD Creators discord server anniversary flash exchange. It’s my first time writing Shunk, and I am notoriously bad at writing anything nicer than hurt/comfort…… but I tried my best to write some fluff with a sort of _Good Omens_ or _Hitchhikers Guide_ -esque sense of humor.
> 
> It wound up making casual references to, among other things, the C’thulhu mythos (specifically to Nyarlathotep, an eldritch entity who explicitly prefers driving people to madness, rather than simply destroying everything), Junji Ito’s _The Enigma of Amigara Fault_ , and Lotor’s horrific, traumatic backstory. And yet, it’s the second-fluffiest VLD fic that I’ve written, to date. Seriously, despite the casual, offhand references to sad things from canon — not to mention Hunk’s anxiety disorder and Shiro’s morbid sense of humor — this is by-the-numbers, tropetastic fluffy nonsense in which nothing unexpected happens.
> 
> Features very minor sides of Lance/Lotor, Keith/Regris, Allura/Zethrid, Ezor/Pidge, Acxa/Krolia/Romelle, Alteans having more common polyamory (and a budding arrangement that basically adds up to endgame Allura/Lance/Lotor+Allura/Zethrid), and Coran/Kolivan. How fortunate that Regris completed his recovery in the space hospital and could join us for this fic, right?
> 
> Also, I borrowed Mey’s headcanon about what Hunk’s given first name is. That was her idea, not mine. I just really, really liked her idea and absorbed it via headcanon osmosis.
> 
> Finally, the title is shamelessly ripped off from George Michael’s “Kissing A Fool,” because: 1. I really like George Michael; 2. my headcanon Shiro really likes George Michael; and 3. seriously, Hunk and Shiro are a pair of disasters up one side and down the other all over this whole fic, so the song seemed appropriate.

If anything in the universe mixes well with hangovers, then Takashi Shirogane, Black Paladin of Voltron and, in the words of Leandro “Lance” Esparza, “a stone-cold silver fox” at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, has absolutely no idea what that something is.

This is not for lack of trying, on Shiro’s part. While he prefers to simply avoid putting himself in the position to worry about hangovers — especially not given the ever-looming threats of intergalactic war and eldritch horrors from beyond all realms of comprehensible knowledge — Shiro has dealt with more than his fair share. To wit, he has found varying degrees of restorative inefficacy in: cold showers; tomato juice; B-vitamin supplements; bacon cheeseburgers; warm baths with epsom salts and baking soda; spicy chicken wings; sugar snap peas; rubbing a lime under his armpit; raw eggs, tabasco, and Worcestershire sauce; rubbing a lime under his armpit while drinking coconut milk; a cup of green tea steeped with _umeboshi_ , a nauseatingly, mouth-puckeringly pickled _ume_ fruit; going for a run and licking the sweat off his arms; cold Chinese takeout; poutine, a particularly grease-laden Canadian delicacy involving French fries, gravy, and cheese curds; Bloody Marys, a so-called “hair of the dog” cure that contained enough servings of vegetables to almost constitute a responsible life decision; and on one occasion, when he was fifteen and an idiot, wearing a “protective amulet” made out of duct tape and a coarse, brown, wiry substance that one of the senior students at Galaxy Garrison flight school swore to the Christian God was actual, literal dog hair.

Without question, Shiro most regrets his misadventure with the poutine.

Since leaving for the Kerberos Mission what feels like lifetimes ago, Shiro hasn’t given himself the option of getting drunk enough to require a hangover remedy. In light of the near-constant state of peril that tags after Shiro to a degree that nearly rivals the most obnoxious _Voltron Show!_ fan-beings, nothing has truly seemed like a special enough occasion to warrant letting slip his inhibitions, throwing back some shots, and getting well and truly, seven sheets to the wind _wrecked_. Not even coming back from the alleged dead (twice!) and having his mind, soul, and spiritual essence downloaded into a clone body could derail Shiro from his steadfast and stringently maintained sobriety.

Last night, Lance’s twenty-first birthday seemed like a special enough occasion that Shiro could let himself go just this once.

Dragging his one hand down his face and groaning at the pale light of the Olkari morning, however? Shiro not-quite-so-dimly wishes that Allura and Lotor could put their combined millennia of learning, experience, and Oriande-imparted alchemical wisdom to figure out the secret of time-travel. As soon as they piece it together, Shiro will reach back into yesterday and smack some sense into his slightly-younger self.

In the meantime, though, Shiro helps himself to a deep yawn and an oversized mug of the hot, robust, impossibly filling Olkari beverage that he’s come to quite appreciate. As yet, this delicacy remains the closest thing that Shiro has in place of coffee and right now, he desperately requires assistance in waking up. Wars for the fate of free universe wait for no one.

*** * ***

Hunk is screwed. Maybe he wishes that he weren’t. Maybe he wishes that he could reach back in time and retroactively tell himself to make better choices. At the absolute least, he’d settle for another way of expressing this sentiment that wouldn’t run the risk of making his Mom give him one of her Pointedly Unimpressed expressions that, without words, demands to know why her baby insists on disappointing her so badly.

No two ways about it, though: this time, Hawea Michael Garrett of Earth, Apia, the Galaxy Garrison, and Team Voltron has dug himself a hole from which no man could recover and tunnelled so deep into Hell that he might as well set up a restaurant and start serving brimstone smoothies and imp egg omelettes to Satan, the Prince of Darkness, himself. This is a new low not only by his own standards, but surely by any and all standards among every sentient species in the universe, whether they’re alive, extinct, or only marginally less threatened than the Alteans.

Or, in so many words, Hunk is _screwed_.

Or anyway, that’s the only summary that makes any sense, considering that his memory of last night goes completely blank somewhere around his sixth glass of some bright pink cocktail that Ezor called a Kithranian Sunrise. Only one thing stands out from the rest of the night: making out with somebody, which would be a great place to start and would probably make Hunk feel pretty good about himself.

Except that he cannot, for the life of him, remember who his makeout partner was.

Pacing around his quarters and only half-dressed, he can’t help the whine that slips loose from his throat over the increasingly poignant threat of how crushingly, irreparably screwed he really is. He stares helplessly at his data-pad, at the list of friends and allies whose names he’s scribbled on it. He wracks his brain so hard that he’d probably have more luck if he sucked the treasonous organ out of his skull and threw it against a wall. He taps his stylus against his cheek as though this might somehow shake whichever mental wires he’s rattled around back into place, so he can maybe possibly get himself back together and get to work.

Mostly, hitting himself in the face makes his head throb in protest.

Down on his bedside table, three of Allura’s four mice chitter at him while he paces and periodically amongst themselves. Flopped out and pretending to snore, Platt has an idea that Hunk wishes could work for him, too. Skulking back to bed and snoozing until he feels like less of a screw-up? Sounds perfect. Unfortunately, tiny little Chulatt bounces on Platt’s big, squishy tummy like an appropriately mouse-sized trampoline, squeaking like he means to rouse Platt from whatever game he thinks he’s playing.

A paragon of sensibility among mice, pretty, pink Chuchule keeps her almond-shaped red eyes focused on Hunk. When she sighs, he sure hopes that it’s at Chulatt burping, rather than at anything he’s doing. It’d totally fit, right? Why wouldn’t she be exasperated with her fellow mice when Platt’s lazing around and Chulatt’s acting like an over-energetic pup?

Something about the way that Chuchule squints, though, suggests that Hunk is once again silently asking the universe for more help, breaks, and other assorted nice things than it feels inclined to give him. He can’t settle his nerves, not even with deep, meditative breaths. He can’t stand being in darkness but also can’t look at his lamps without flinching and feeling slightly ill. He can’t remember how many hydration packs he chugged in between what he’s sure was a staggering amount of Kithranian Sunrises. Worst of all, though, is definitely the making out conundrum. Aside from his list of possibilities and the one name he can definitely rule out, he can’t pull up any concrete idea about whose tongue was in his mouth last night.

“Heck, I’d be fine if I could just wake up in somebody else’s life,” Hunk mutters, figuring that he might as well take advantage of the adorable, murine-adjacent companionship to basically talk to himself without feeling like he’s losing his mind. He blinks at Chuchule. “Allura and Lotor can’t actually do that for me, right? Put me to sleep and let me wake up as someone else? You’d say something if they could do that for me?”

Chuchule slouches with her entire body. As she stares at Hunk, her expression seems to tell him, _“I am not capable of speech in the same way as you and Princess Allura and all of your vexing, eccentric friends. How could I possibly tell you anything?”_

Hunk glowers at her, and seethes when all she does is tilt her head slightly to the side. “You’re no help at all, you know that?”

Sniffing in the manner of someone who definitely knows how unhelpful she’s being and has elected not to care, Chuchule lies down between Hunk’s comb and the shiny, yellow charge cord for his data-pad. As if taking orders from a leader, Chulatt stops bouncing on Platt and curls up at Chuchule’s side.

On his way out, Hunk switches off the lights and leaves the door slightly ajar. He might need to ask someone else for assistance with this conundrum, but that’s no reason to trap Allura’s mice in his room.

*** * ***

As expected, ambling onto the bridge brings Shiro right to Lotor. True to form, he offers up polite greetings without pulling his eyes away from the screen pulled up before him. Taking a long sip of caf, Shiro takes up his normal position at Lotor’s right-hand side. Slipping right into business as usual, watches while the mildly contested Galra Emperor hums through their morning ritual of checking on how the war’s going.

Listening to Lotor read off a report from Matt and Olia’s faction, Shiro tries to fold his right arm over his chest and mirror Lotor’s posture. When he doesn’t get the familiar pressure resting against his pecs, Shiro huffs and rolls his eyes. God, he can still remember the entire night in perfect detail, therefore he didn’t drink so much that he has an excuse for losing control of his muscles like this. No good reason for his lack of self-discipline comes to mind — until Shiro glances to his side and finds a blank space where he expects to see the light gleaming off the surface of his Galra-tech prosthetic.

The full weight of reality settles in as Shiro blinks at his residual bit of arm, poking out from his black shirt’s sleeve. The bit that comes into the light _does_ glisten, he supposes, but only by virtue of being so ghostly pale that, if he squints in the right way at the right time, Shiro can nearly see the blood vessels underneath his skin. Somewhat obstructing his ability to see them, his faint scars jag and criss-cross through each other like they’re trying to give Shiro his own hidden picture puzzle.

So far, he hasn’t found a secret image so much as a perpetual reminder that he is impossibly lucky Lotor and Allura could even remove Haggar’s metal casing, much less that they could successfully strip away her intricate weave of magi-technological neuromuscular interface wiring and let Shiro have _his own_ arm back. But that’s good enough, he supposes.

At least, it would be, if today were any other morning and Shiro weren’t trying to hug himself with a stump.

Even so hungover that he apparently can’t recognize phantom limb feelings for what they are, Shiro quickly picks up on how different markers have changed positions around the Coalition’s star-map since yesterday. The red ones show how enemy factions’ fleets have moved, as well as which planets and systems now face likelier threats from either Haggar or Sendak and the Fire of Purification. The blue ones show how where Coalition forces are most active, and when Lotor picks them out, he summons up more detailed reports from the rebel commanders and/or Blades positioned in those locations. The brilliantly green ones label the areas that are currently the most unstable, whether their inhabitants are tearing themselves apart over the allegiances that they wish to make or the war’s factions are fighting each other more intensely over control of these regions.

The hot pink markers, however, turn Shiro’s stomach more than anything else. Pidge set that color aside to chart the possible movements of the eldritch entity that first drew Lotor into the quantum abyss, then took advantage of his good intentions and fed on the Alteans he’d saved. Working together, the Sincline generals and Team Voltron barely managed to get any Altean survivors out of the abyss, and the horror’s hold on Lotor proved even harder to shake off. True, they managed to free him, in the end — but simply looking at the pink dots on the screen makes Lotor pale and grind his teeth.

Since he still has caf left in his mug, Shiro opts for nudging his shoulder at Lotor’s, rather than giving him a reassuring squeeze.

“I’m fine,” Lotor bites out. “I merely wish that we could get ahead of this thing. But for all the data we have on this…” Shaking his head slightly, he asks, “ _What_ have you taken to calling it?”

“Nyarlathotep.” Shrugging at Lotor’s scrunched up, bemused expression, Shiro explains, “Once upon a time on Earth, there was this author named Howard Phillips Lovecraft. He wasn’t exactly a talented writer, but he had some interesting ideas that wound up changing the development of some of our most popular forms of storytelling after he died. One of the characters he made up was this monstrous deity called Nyarlathotep. He’s cruel, manipulative, delights in driving people mad and shackling them in service to his masters. He was the first thing I thought of when you told us what being possessed felt like.”

Although Lotor nods, he doesn’t untwist his face. “If this Earthling author is so influential and so celebrated? Then why would you wish to associate his work with a being that, as per Ilun and Vreck’s report from planet Bryll…”

With a sigh that comes from unfathomably deep in his bones, Lotor zooms in on a new section of star-map and pulls up said report. He swallows thickly, then tells Shiro, “Granted, they are still investigating, but some of the Beysians — an ethnic minority on Bryll, long oppressed by the Capkayne and Lorahn Bryllites as well as my late Father’s forces — have begun exhibiting signs that the entity from the Rift might be among them.”

Shiro leans closer to the screen. “The rise of a new spiritual leader is interesting. But it _could_ be nothing—”

“I would agree with you, if not for the fact that Myxzasen Trillphane was little more than a common root farmer, merely three phoebs ago. By all accounts that Ilun and Vreck have gathered, he wasn’t particularly devoted to any of the Beysian deities or worship rituals. He wasn’t even a particularly good root farmer. That he has come up and captured such a following so quickly? To say nothing of the depths of their fanaticism?”

“Is definitely something. But we have to be careful. If we start seeing Nyarlathotep in everything, we could miss a scam-artist with friends in high places. Or someone who’s acting as puppet to a higher power with significantly less influence than what we’re actually looking for. Or, y’know, more mundane conspiracies like that.”

Although Lotor seems to consider this, he ultimately makes a begrudging, throaty, grumbling sort of noise that acquiesces to Shiro’s rationality, but says Shiro ought to be very worried nevertheless, no matter how much the anxiety would murder his head right now. He tongues at his lips before bidding Shiro to keep reading, because the tale that Ilun and Vreck weave gets significantly more intriguing. It also contains the true reasons for Lotor’s concern, all of which quickly make themselves apparent.

“Rabble-rousing and incitement to violence… Secret meetings — except they’re talking about them openly enough for two spies to hear it, so… Clearly ritualistic slaughter of Lorahn livestock that doesn’t match Bryll’s traditional practices… Missing children from prominent Capkayne or Lorahn families… Plague of nightmares…” Shiro sighs. “I mean, it might _not_ be Nyarlathotep? But we should definitely get a task-force ready to send Vreck and Ilun some backup.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Drumming his fingertips on his elbow, Lotor arches an eyebrow so pointedly that he could wield his expression in a duel to the death and win. “It is also one of my many reasons for inquiring as to _why_ you would willfully disgrace one of your planet’s celebrated creative minds by associating his work with this monster.”

“Oh, he’s celebrated, but HP Lovecraft was pretty terrible. He was such a bigot that your Father probably would’ve told him he went too far. And _our_ Nyarlathotep keeps preying on people who have legitimate grievances, y’know? Who’ve suffered oppression and abuse, it’s just…” Maybe Shiro could explain this better, were he not hungover.

As it stands, though, Shiro feels like he has an entire army of tiny gnomes digging at his brain with pickaxes. It’s a good thing that Olkari caf has enough nutrition to count as a meal in its own right, because Shiro doubts his ability to keep anything else down right now. If he managed to swallow in the first place, then surely, Shiro would be violently sick in short order. Glancing over his shoulder, he’s sorely tempted to try and pull his seat over to where Lotor’s standing because it’s taking an obscene amount of effort to keep himself on his own two feet while also reading up on the news from the universe’s active fronts. When he turns back to the screen, Shiro cringes from how _bright_ the stupid thing is.

If Nyarlathotep found their way to the castle-ship and mounted an attack right now, Shiro would only be able to throw up on whatever their hypothetical incarnation might have in the way of shoes.

“Rough night?” Despite his perpetual undercurrent of snark, Lotor offers Shiro a sympathetic smile. “For whatever comfort it gives you, I appreciate you getting to work while feeling ill. Likewise, I sincerely doubt that you are the only person still reeling from last night’s, erm. _Festivities_.”

“You don’t seem to be doing too badly,” Shiro points out with a shrug.

“Unlike most of our comrades, I limited myself to three glasses of the Krellian sweet-root liqueur. As such, it is only fitting that I would not feel the after-effects of alcohol quite so much as the rest of you.”

Even so, Lotor winces as one of the planets on the screen flares up to let them know that a battle’s starting. The overwhelming redness of the image suggests that the battle will be one of Coalition forces fighting to liberate those still living under the tyranny of Zarkon loyalists. If things go favorably, then planet Cryfflan will become one more world to join the ranks of those who stand against oppression and intergalactic exploitation, possibly a new safe haven for refugees or Coalition forces. However, this fact does not help Lotor look any less like he’d projectile vomit all over the bridge if he didn’t strongly suspect that such behavior would strike anyone who saw as dreadfully uncouth and horridly unbecoming of the Galra Emperor.

Then again, considering what Shiro knows of Dayak and her attitudes about every last detail of Lotor’s rule? Shiro can’t blame his friend for being overly conscious of his appearance. Zarkon might not be a threat anymore. He might not be able to unfairly punish Lotor from beyond the grave for alleged infractions that wouldn’t faze anyone else. Lotor’s old governess, on the other hand, likely wouldn’t hesitate to make her (hypothetical) displeasure with Lotor’s gastric pyrotechnics known.

With a soft huff, Lotor admits, “In retrospect, I wish that I had thought to cut myself off after the second glass. Regardless, as Lance said, he only had one chance to properly commemorate the successful completion of his twenty-first year.”

“True enough. At least he got a good party for it, too.” Shiro chuckles, only somewhat ruefully. “I don’t know about you, but I spent _my_ twenty-first birthday drinking by myself, trying to pick up a guy who was probably old enough to be my father, and finally getting dragged back to Commander Iverson’s place because he caught me in the act of trying to be a huge slut. To be fair, he and his husband let me have chocolate ice cream for breakfast, but…”

Blushing slightly, Shiro clicks his tongue. “That was because it’s apparently a decent hangover remedy. Not that it did anything meaningful for me personally, aside from tasting good and making me feel special? But I appreciated the sentiment.”

“Several questions occur, Shiro.” Lotor hums pensively, making the face of someone who’s just sucked on a lemon and found absolutely no answers to the philosophical quandaries racketing around his mind. “First: what is a slut? You and Lance use that word as though it makes sense to everyone, but you do so in enough disparate contexts that, despite my towering intellect and formidable deductive prowess, I have not discerned what it means.”

“Oh, uh…” Shiro’s cheeks flush even warmer. He’s relieved that his reflection in the screen before them doesn’t show the color of his face, because he’s likely doing a convincing impersonation of an incredibly flustered tomato. “Sluttiness is a human concept, uh… Not every Earthling culture has it? But in the ones who do, the basic idea goes back to, like… Oh, this person — usually, a girl or a young woman — likes having sex without romance, and they actively seek out sex, and don’t limit themself to a single partner. So, people are like, ‘Wow, gosh, how very _dare_ they enjoy having _orgasms_. Obviously, they are a horrible, damaged, heartless person.’”

“That…” Lotor gives Shiro a low whistle. “That sounds like the sort of sexual ethics that not even Sendak could advocate.”

“Yeah, well… Humans _do_ happen to live in the backwoods outer-spiral arm of a galaxy that more advanced species such as yours left entirely alone until the Blue Lion crashed there. Because we were too stupid, and primitive, and out of the way to bother with.”

“True. Perhaps I have come to expect better of Earthlings due to the time I have spent with you and the other Paladins, excluding Allura. Humankind is aware that such alleged logic about relationships makes absolutely no sense, yes?”

“Some of us are. They either try to reclaim the word, like Lance, or they try to call out how flawed and ridiculous the whole thing is. Others, though… Well, they don’t see the lack of logic and they largely think anyone who does is being too sensitive. Or trying to invent problems so that they have an excuse to be angry.” Smirking, Shiro lets himself ask, “Still want to form an alliance with Earth, when the war’s over?”

Lips pursed so tightly that they almost disappear, Lotor sniffs and flips his cowlick off his face. “It would be hypocritical of me to hold your entire species accountable for the stupidity of a few. Second question: why are Earthlings so concerned with specifically commemorating the twenty-first birthday? Is the reasoning as stupid as the concept of sluttiness?”

“Oh, that’s not actually — it’s a rite of passage for us. It isn’t even held across all cultures. But in the United States — where the Galaxy Garrison’s headquarters are — you hit legal majority when you turn eighteen. You can vote, buy your own cigarettes and pornography, and do pretty much everything, except for legally drinking alcohol. You can’t do that until you turn twenty-one.”

“Indeed,” says Lotor with the air of someone who finds this custom either endearingly quaint, or so curious that he doesn’t want to poke the hornet’s nest any further. “You know, I remain dazzled by the speed with which human beings develop. I spent my own twenty-first year clinging to Dayak’s skirts, relishing her lessons in proper dueling technique, and begging her to give me more advanced reading on the histories of races other than the Galra. Had I attempted to consume alcohol, it would have done unspeakable damage to my growth. I could not drink with relative safety until I was nearing the end of my second century of life.”

“Yeah, well, I’m constantly dazzled by the fact that my two best friends are the unfairly talented and beautiful friend I’ve had even when I thought that I had nothing, who has since grown up and become the personal protege of the leader of the Blade of Marmora, and… Wow, Jesus, there was an _unconscionable_ number of ‘of’s in that description of Keith—”

“Someday, Shiro, you are going to tell me who this ‘Jesus’ whom you keep addressing is—”

“—And an equally unfairly beautiful alien space-prince — sorry, I know, space- _emperor_ — who has survived, among other things, his Father’s abuse, Haggar’s torture, countless assassination attempts before he even took the Galra throne, the Kral Zera, and being possessed by an eldritch horror from the Rift between realities.” Huffing, Shiro drains the rest of his caf and sets his mug on the nearest desk. “But I’m more dazzled by the fact that all of this is, like, second nature to me, now. I was never supposed to live this long, never mind make it out here—”

“Yes, you are rather like a Legrryzian berserker wyrm in that way. They routinely exhibit a similar tenacious resolve to live. Or, some would say, a painfully stubborn refusal to die—”

Shiro snorts. “They sound like a barrel of Ulanghan glibble fish—”

“Indeed. Should any of our future misadventures take us to the jungle moon of Tyssh, I will personally see to it that you have time to get acquainted with the berserker wyrms. Who knows? You might find a third family in addition to what you have with Team Voltron.” Lotor allows a playful smirk to curl up his lips — then says, “Third question: what in the ever-expansive minds of all the Altean sages is _ice cream_?”

“Earthling dessert food. It’s… You know how Kaltenecker makes milk, right?”

As Lotor slouches and his shoulders hunch in around his chest, his smirk vanishes so quickly that, if Shiro didn’t know better, he would believe Lotor had never smirked once in his entire ten-thousand years (and then some) of life. Paling, Lotor inhales sharply and does nothing to conceal the noise of disgust that claw out of his throat. His pointy ears sag more than his shoulders, and even his cowlick seems to wilt.

Cringing, Lotor fails to repress a deep shudder. “I still do not understand why Hunk and Pidge didn’t think of simply programming… They are _geniuses_. Prodigies in ways that most Galra could never rival, even though we are more advanced. How could they not think to make a _robot_ clean up after your bovid’s mess…” Another disgusted huff and Lotor clings to his own elbows. “That _is_ what she is called, yes? A bovid?”

“Well, she’s called a cow — at least, in English. But ‘bovine’ is the right adjective.” Dragging his hand back through his silver hair, Shiro sighs. “Anyway, you take her milk. You mix it with butter to get cream. You take the cream, mix it with sugar and whatever flavorings you like, and freeze it until it turns solid.” Huffing, he adds, “Hunk could tell you more about the process, and how to do more interesting things with it? But you’ve actually had ice cream before—”

“I think that I would remember such a thing—”

“Ice cream is a key ingredient in Hunk’s milkshakes, Lotor.”

“…Oh. Well, then.” Right as his ears recover their usual sense of dignity, Lotor wilts and they droop all over again. “Funny that you should mention Hunk, though. He is a key player in my final question.”

Heat floods over Shiro’s face and neck, but he nods his consent for Lotor to get on with it already.

Before putting Shiro out of his waiting-induced misery, Lotor takes advantage of the moment and bumps into Shiro’s shoulder. His ears perk up again as he gets a whine out of Shiro. Almost immediately, he’s right back to smirking like a particularly delighted, impish, unfairly gorgeous purple elf-man with hair that would make Lady Godiva jealous.

“So, I could not help but _notice_ ,” he teases, grinning as he pokes at Shiro’s bicep. “You and Hunk seemed _quite_ intimate last night…”

The unspoken question weighs so heavily on Shiro that shrugging would take too much effort.

“Yeah, we kissed,” he admits, ducking his chin and trying to summon the energy to scratch the back of his neck. He doesn’t manage it, and right now, Shiro wonders if he shouldn’t give today a miss and crawl back into bed. “I’m not gonna do anything about it, though.”

“Whyever _not_ , darling!” Lotor balks, rolling his eyes. “He would not have kissed you if he were not interested. If he did not _reciprocate_ —”

“Whether or not he’s interested isn’t the issue. He was _drunk_.” Although Shiro doesn’t know why his head’s spinning so much all of a sudden, he slouches over to his seat. Once Lotor’s perched on his desk, Shiro explains, “Look, I was pretty drunk too, so I’m not beating myself up about the kiss itself. But I’m also not going to hold it over Hunk’s head and act like it means anything.”

“Noble of you. Quite honorable—”

“Actually, it’s called basic decency and respect for consent.”

“Not in my experience. In some of the places that I have been before, you would be truly unique for not taking advantage of this situation.” Letting those words hang in the air between them, Lotor gives Shiro the sort of soft, earnest look that typically comes when Lotor _could_ tell a distressing story from his past, but would prefer not to. Gently, taking care not to scrape his little claws against Shiro’s scalp, Lotor ruffles his hair. “I am sure that Hunk would appreciate this, too. If he ever learns of it.”

“I’d rather he didn’t, honestly.” Still, Shiro gives Lotor a warm smile. “Anyway, you and Lance seemed pretty cozy when I went to bed.”

“Oh, yes, that certainly did…” Lowering his gaze, Lotor can’t keep his cheeks from flushing dark or stop his ears from drooping. “I was enjoying his company quite well. Unfortunately, it did not go anywhere after you left.” Huffing, he blows at his cowlick. “Unless we expand our definition to include me escorting Lance back to his quarters after he tried to fight one of Ezor and Romelle’s balloon sculptures, started crying about how my eyes have blue irises, and was quite ill all over my boots.”

“I’m sorry, man.” Patting Lotor’s knee, Shiro tries to give him a smile. “At least he was probably trying to be romantic and sweet?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. I remain uncertain as to whether or not he even reciprocates my feelings. However, as someone whom I rather like and respect once said more times than I care to count…” With a smirk that wants so badly to seem innocent and only succeeds in making him look like he’s been up to _Something_ since before he learned to crawl, Lotor pokes at Shiro’s nose. “Patience yields focus. Or yields a relationship built on respect for Lance’s lack of ability to consent or make decisions that he might not come to regret, such as the case is.”

Shiro can’t argue with that — but he snorts at the idea anyway. “Whoever told you that sounds like an idiot.”


	2. Chapter 2

On the entire castle-ship, there’s only one person who can help Hunk with his predicament.

Fortunately, he doesn’t need to waste too much time in looking for said person. He finds Shiro exactly where he expected: hanging out on the bridge with Lotor, like a pair of responsible adults who are working to defend the universe, even though both of them look like they could use either a good, long nap or half-a-varga in the healing pods. Sitting over at Shiro’s Spot, they’ve left up a star-map with some of the morning’s reports pulled up, which makes perfect sense for two of the Coalition’s leaders in the universal fight against tyranny. The first thing that Hunk hears when he slips through the doors, though, is Lotor snickering in his way that would be full-bodied laughter for most people.

Which is about the exact opposite of an appropriate reaction to have to something with the words _“Potential cult activity”_ emblazoned in big, bold letters — but before he can get too Bothered, Lotor swats playfully at Shiro’s shoulder.

“I will have you know that Lance is _very_ romantic, when he puts his mind to it,” Lotor says, a few shades too primly for his tone to be completely genuine. “True, his style of romance might not be entirely comprehensible by human standards—”

“It isn’t that we don’t understand where he’s trying to come from, Your Imperial Highness.” Eyebrows arched like a kitten toying with a mouse who’s caught inside a trap and didn’t even get to have the cheese that baited it into that situation, Shiro props his chin in his good hand and gives Lotor an impossibly bright smirk. “It’s that Lance doesn’t always do right by the people he’s trying so hard to romance. He might not fit any of our traditional standards very well. But that’s an entirely different story from him putting his best efforts into making something happen without considering how it might play to an audience?”

“You may say so all you like, darling. But that does not entirely reassure me that you do _not_ intend to poke fun at my beloved and his, erm…” Lotor purses his lips and lets slip the throaty, hopelessly confused sound of someone who fluently speaks over fifty languages (as far as Hunk knows) without the assistance of a universal translator, and can’t find the word that he wants in literally any of them. “Um, his _creative_ and singularly _unique_ approach to what might hypothetically be courting and romantic seduction.”

It’s a good thing that Lotor looks downright adorable when he blushes. Otherwise, Hunk might get hung up on the fact that _the Emperor of the Galra_ has a crush on his best friend, and his baser instincts might compel him to rub this fact in someone’s face.

Still oblivious to the fact that Hunk is even here, Shiro chuckles. “If I ever poke fun at Lance, it’s done from a place of love—”

“ _Familial_ or _friendly_ love, I hope—”

“Well, those translations sound about right, to me? But I assume there are some nuances that I’m missing from the original Galra—”

“Almost certainly.” Lotor huffs and flips his cowlick. “For being such a warlike race, we have an incredibly detailed understanding of love, with several different words for the different kinds of love and relationships… It grew increasingly unpopular, as my Father’s reign of terror endured and reached its lowest depths of despotism and oppression. Nevertheless, we _do_ have this…”

“Someday, you’re gonna need to break all of that down for me. I can tell you what I know about different human ideas of love too, if you want.” Shiro quirks his shoulders without quite shrugging. “I just love _love_ , you know? I love talking about different people’s concepts of love, and how they talk about it, and the different practices, and beliefs, and social structures that they have about it…”

“Indeed. The ferocious tenacity of a Legrryzian berserker wyrm, and the heart of a poet. Specifically, I would point you toward the Zeganite mystical philosopher-poets of planet Ghazan. For millennia, they have written extensively on the nature of love. Its many splendors and pains, the nuances of it, its capacity to create bliss as well as terror—”

“Oh God, they sound amazing. And those books sound fascinating—”

“I certainly think so.” Face soft and eyes warm, Lotor smiles at Shiro — which should be a sign of the looming apocalypse, for all nothing _feels_ like it’s going to explode. “I have data-pad versions of their more important works — that is to say, the ones that have had the most impact on their culture — should you ever take an interest. Arranging a translation for you shouldn’t be terribly difficult. At least, not for yours truly.”

“You’d really do something like that? I mean, you’d probably need to send someone to Earth, so they could work with one of our aspiring xeno-linguists—”

“If I do not take advantage of my position as Emperor in order to help people, then I do not deserve to have it.”

“You aren’t really talking about helping _people_ , though? You’re talking about investing a lot of time and energy into getting non-automatic translations of these texts to satisfy my personal interests and curiosity.”

“You fit into the category of _people_ , do you not?” Lotor shrugs as though he genuinely doesn’t understand the distinction, as opposed to choosing to ignore it. “I wish to do something kind for one of the few friends I have ever had. If you truly object, then I will refrain. If not…?”

Lotor gives Shiro a smirk that begs him to argue and knows that Shiro absolutely can’t. Then, because the universe’s intangible consciousness has it out for Hunk personally, Shiro allows a smile to blossom on his stupid, gorgeous face.

It is a commonly held truism among members of the Voltron Freedom Coalition that Takashi Shirogane has the most awe-inspiring, beautiful smile out of any of the Paladins, whether present or former. Word of his amazing grins spread far and wide, faster than the Black Death and infinitely nicer, even without getting backed up by the publicity Coran created through the Voltron Show. During Keith’s stints at the Black Paladin — both after the fight with Zarkon way back when, and more recently, while Lotor, Coran, and Shiro worked on figuring out a way for him to pilot Black with only one arm — different people watched him leave the Black Lion and openly wondered why they were being treated to one of Keith’s post-battle glowers

People on worlds liberated by Voltron have made up plenty of legends about the Black Paladin. Deservedly so, for all Shiro would get painfully modest and disagree, if anyone wanted to point this out to him. Folks from here to the other end of the universe have rabbited on and on at each other about how he became the Champion and called all kinds of Hell down on himself because he tried to free other prisoners, how he fought Zakon on the astral plane by himself, and how he might be immortal because he’s returned from the alleged dead more than enough times to make you wonder how he does it.

Absolutely none of those stories rivals the things that they say about Shiro’s smile. Across the universe, people have favorably compared Shiro’s smile to the purple-and-gold sunrises on planet Alythane, the majestic mountain ranges of planet Ratzeon, the ancient temple ruins and art museums of planet Delaskyx, the forests and jungles of planet Codore, and the underwater gardens on planet Tatya. That’s not even half of what Hunk’s heard people saying, either (and it’s less than a fraction of what he’s heard about from Keith, Regris, and so many other allies who’ve traveled even further and wider than Hunk has).

If anybody wants to ask for Hunk’s opinion, he can speak to this last comparison for himself. Not that anybody _has_ asked, and not that anybody _would_? But yeah sure, Queen Luxia’s mer-planet is definitely lovely. She takes well-deserved pride in the glory of her gardens, which are always well-kept, now that they aren’t playing host to an evil plant-dragon that mind-controls people, makes them all but outright worship it, and then eats them. Even the untamed wilds of planet Tatya are so exquisite that they defy Hunk’s descriptive ability and would do the same if he weren’t so massively hungover — but nothing in Queen Luxia’s domain can hold a candle to the glory of Shiro’s smile, and not only because you can’t light candles underwater.

Dimly, Hunk wonders if the magic that Allura learned in Oriande could help someone light a candle and keep it burning underwater. He wonders if there are any planets where that happens naturally. Probably not — but as he shifts his weight from foot to foot, Hunk can’t run from his awareness of how much he’s only thinking about this to avoid actually asking Shiro for help.

The worst part of everything, though, is how oblivious Shiro gets about his unearthly, impossible beauty. He brightens up entire rooms without meaning to do anything. Without fully realizing the effect that he has on those fortunate enough to see his face light up like this, he makes innocent hearts start doing some truly impressive, flip-flopping gymnastics. God, if Hunk were only slightly more hungover? He’d probably swoon right here, right now, while his heart beats hard enough to burst out of his chest and screams, _“Doki-fucking-doki, beeyotch!”_ or something equally ridiculous and aimed at punishing Hunk for existing while himself, and happening to be in the same room at Shiro, and having a mind to get any assistance with his, _“Who did I drunkenly make out with last night?”_ conundrum.

Unfortunately, although he manages not to pass out all over the bridge, Hunk is apparently still hungover enough to fail at impulse-control. A soft whine creeps up out of him before he feels it coming, much less gets it in his mind to hold back. As he silently hopes that no one hears him, Shiro and Lotor blink at him.

With that horrible, terrible, gorgeous smile beaming at Hunk like the three suns of planet Tinjarrah, Shiro beckons him over and asks how Hunk’s feeling. He ruffles his hand over his hair and yawns like he’s completely at ease with this situation, like he _can’t_ see the data-pad in Hunk’s hands and like he _isn’t_ wondering what Hunk’s doing with it. God, Shiro might not notice anything going on around him — or that’s how it feels, with him pointedly acting as if nothing strange has happened.

As though he didn’t literally just bust Hunk in the act of staring like a pathetic stalker who was raised by a coven of lovestruck teenyboppers, Shiro goes through the motions of asking how Hunk slept, and how his head feels, and how he’s handling the hangover. He goes about the small talk like everything’s perfectly fine and normal, like there’s nothing at all weird about Hunk showing up from out of nowhere, then standing around and listening to him and Lotor chinwag instead of making his intentions known upfront.

Right as Hunk’s letting himself get comfortable, though, Lotor decides to chime in with, “Oooh, are you reading something good?” By way of explanation, he points one of those long, spidery fingers at Hunk’s data-pad. “I do hope that you are. I have lately found myself in need of some good leisure reading, and some recommendations would not go amiss.”

“Uh, no, it’s more kinda like I’m…” Face flushing warm and every inch of him screaming out that he should run back to his quarters and forget this entire personal mission, Hunk ducks his chin. “Y’know, after how much I _drank_ last night? I don’t know how it is for Galra? Or for Alteans? Or for people who are half-Galra and half-Altean — what d’you even call yourself for that? Like, _Galtean_ or something—”

“I have only rarely had opportunity to consider that question, and the answer largely depends on the audience—”

“Hunk, breathe.” Shiro smiles at him in a way that would be reassuring, if not for the way it makes Hunk’s heartbeat race. That stupid, obnoxious organ rackets around his chest so loudly that there’s no way Shiro doesn’t hear it — but as if he can’t tell what he’s doing to Hunk, he breaks out that smooth, gentle tone of voice to say, “It’s okay, man. Whatever happened, or whatever’s going on? You’re among friends. We’ve all done our fair share of embarrassing things while wasted—”

“Except for Acxa,” Lotor adds. “But only because she refuses to imbibe alcohol.”

“Wait, why does she? No — wait, _quiznak_ — don’t answer that.” With a deep breath, Hunk closes his eyes. He’s gonna do this. He’s gonna do this. He’s gonna do this — even if it takes the words exploding out of him like somebody’s blown up a dam inside his head: “I don’t remember all of what happened last night, and that’s probably a good thing because whatever went down was probably, like, super-humiliating and awful? But I know for _sure_ that I made out with somebody? Don’t ask me why _that’s_ what I remember because I don’t know, there’s honestly no good reason for any of this, but anyway, I made a list? Of people? People who were at the party around the time when I macked on somebody like a wasted freaking cad, and I just? Y’know, _messy_?”

As he shoves his data-pad at Shiro, Hunk probably looks like a tomato. A big, dumb, stupid tomato who can’t make good life choices when he’s sober, and does even worse by himself while drunk. God, what sort of Paladin is he? Maybe everybody but Acxa hit the booze last night — after all, it _was_ a party — but surely no one else did anything so bad as this. Even Lance couldn’t have done as badly as Hunk has, and he nearly knocked himself out after getting into a fight with a balloon sculpture. Hunk must have one-upped the most embarrassing stories of alcohol-fueled stupidity in the entire freaking universe. Somehow, he must have done that. It’s the only possible outcome.

While Shiro and Lotor peer down at the screen, Hunk fusses with the hem of his t-shirt, rolling it between his pudgy fingers in the hopes that it might get him to stop shifting on his feet. Mostly, it makes Hunk shift around on his feet while also fidgeting with his hem.

At least the floor of the bridge doesn’t have floorboards that he could make creak. Sure, the lights are not Hunk’s friends right now. Yeah, even barely catching them in the corner of his eye makes Hunk wince and makes his head scream at him so loudly that it puts rabid Voltron Show fans to shame. But at least Hunk doesn’t have to deal with any architectural reminders of the fact that he’s a _Big Guy_ — with the capital letters and pointed emphasis rendered absolutely necessary by Hunk’s sheer size. By how much he weighs, how soft and round and huge his belly is, and how his ratio of fat to muscle still leaves a lot to be desired, even after a few years defending the universe as a Paladin of Voltron.

Jeez, where does he even get off, going _doki-doki_ over Shiro while he’s… like this? Alright, Shiro’s not exactly small, himself? But there’s a quantifiable difference, Hunk is certain, between broad shoulders, athleticism that radiates out of every pore, and enough muscles to make bodybuilding champions get jealous.

Except that’s not a question Hunk can answer. Not on his own, and definitely not right now. All he can do is keep breathing. Ground himself in the present moment, and focus on what’s right in front of him. On the things that he can actually make a difference about. Or, if not that, then he can focus on Shiro’s face and how Shiro looks so unfairly beautiful that anybody in Hunk’s position would probably feel the same way he does. Even considering the slight pallor that Shiro’s own hangover has left him with, today — even with the way his smile fades into a more serious expression as he reads Hunk’s list of names — Shiro is a walking work of art. Or a sitting work of art, at the moment. Or whatever.

Vaguely, Hunk thinks he sees something confused, and sad, and longing gleam in Shiro’s beautiful grey eyes. If he didn’t know better, he would testify before a jury of his peers that Shiro looks like he could just start crying.

But that entire idea is ridiculous. Unfathomably so. In all likelihood, it’s only a sign of how much help Hunk needs because there’s literally nothing for Shiro to be sad _about_ , right now. Annoyed with? Sure, Shiro would deserve the chance to feel that way, considering what Hunk’s asking him to help with and the unavoidable fact that Hunk’s borderline-nonexistent love life has literally no relevance to defending the universe from anything but Hunk’s anxiety.

Sad, though? Hunk has no idea why his brain would lie to him like this, much less wish something like that on Shiro.

*** * ***

As Shiro takes in Hunk’s list of candidates, his heart sinks in his chest. Some of them (Keith, Lance, Allura, Lotor, Romelle) are more than fair enough and it makes perfect sense that Hunk’s considered them as potential make-out partners. Even though Shiro himself prefers guys, he can admit that Allura and Romelle are both intelligent, charming, and beautiful. If not for certain situational deterrents — namely, other potential romantic entanglements — then for sure, Shiro would kiss Keith, Lance, or Lotor. Or more than one of them at the same time.

Others on Hunk’s list (Coran, Kolivan, Krolia, Zethrid) are… reaching, in Shiro’s opinion? More than slightly? Sure, it speaks well of Hunk that he hasn’t ruled any of them out? The inclusion of Coran and Kolivan shows that he’s more open-minded about his make-out partners than Shiro feels, at the moment. Zethrid’s name being here likely only means that Hunk hasn’t picked up on how she’s only interested in other lady-adjacent beings. But Krolia is still on the table, and considering how many times Lance and Hunk have said things to the tune of, _“Keith’s mom has got it goin’ on”_? She’s nowhere near as unlikely as Zethrid.

Further true, all of these possibilities _were_ at Lance’s party last night and none of them dislikes Hunk. Zethrid seems like the easiest name to rule out, given that she prefers women, but in theory, alcohol could have talked her into one experiment. Moreover, as far as Shiro knows, complete metaphysical certitude literally cannot exist, which means there remains an undeniable chance that Hunk _could_ have kissed any of these four. If Slav hadn’t created an accidental fungus-monster in the kitchen and lost all privileges of coming to the Castle of Lions, he would all too likely pull out a lecture for Shiro about the exact probabilities that Hunk could ever make out with Coran, Kolivan, Krolia, or Zethrid, in this reality and at least fifteen others.

Regardless, if Hunk were doing literal gymnastics in drawing up this list, then those names would involve him reaching so far that Shiro would worry about him possibly dislocating his shoulder or giving himself a hernia. In order to even get close to justifying this interpretation, Hunk would need to strain his body’s limits past their logical breaking points and put himself in the space-hospital for at least a three-phoeb recovery period.

Hell, Hunk could stumble into a gorge full of holes, find one shaped exactly like him that inexplicably compelled him to shove himself inside it, spend nine months getting dragged down meters upon meters of an increasingly twisted and transmogrifying tunnel through a mountain, and come out the other side as a rubbery, body horror noodle-person with stretched-out, hyper-flexible limbs that can extend to superhuman lengths like some kind of Reed Richards nightmare — and he would still have trouble reaching far enough to find the version of reality where he made out with these people. Even with his limbs turned so elastic, he would need to break himself in order to justify claiming that they live in the reality where he had Kolivan’s tongue inside his mouth, Krolia’s hands all over his gorgeous backside, or Coran’s mustache quivering against his upper lip like the heroine in one of Shiro’s tacky, loosely Brontë sisters-inspired bodice-rippers.

Yet a third group of names (Pidge, Ezor, Acxa, Regris) doesn’t contain anyone who’s entirely out of the question — not least because Hunk is pansexual, and has said that he would kiss all of these people, if they ever took an interest — but they still seem somewhat less likely than the names in the first group. Still possible and far more likely than the middle group, but at the same time, they aren’t quite as likely to have kissed Hunk. They are the backup plans of make-out partners.

Or anyway they _would_ seem like that, if Shiro didn’t know very well who Hunk made out with.

Shiro can’t find his own name anywhere on Hunk’s data-pad, though. Not even down at the bottom of the list. Not even buried in the middle, between two of the names that Shiro doesn’t consider very likely to ever kiss Hunk anywhere.

“This is quite a comprehensive list?” Lotor’s upward inflection grates Shiro’s nerves like the sort of fine, hard cheese whose incredible pungency makes it a delicacy that Hunk would only serve to customers who proved that they could afford it, if he had his own restaurant right now instead of a universe that needs defending. On the heels a deep inhale, Lotor sounds as though he has something poignant on his mind to say — but all he does at first is smack his lips. “For what it’s worth? I can rule out myself and Lance. Allura and Zethrid, as well.”

Hunk frowns bemusedly. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Very much so. Lance and I were quite distracted with each other—”

“Oh, dude, really? That’s awesome! How did it go?”

“He made himself sick, but otherwise enjoyed the evening. Of somewhat more relevance? Allura and Zethrid left together rather early—”

“But I could have made out with either of them before they left—”

“In all the time that I have known her, Zethrid has never gotten so drunk that she forgot her exclusive attraction to women.” Lotor purses his lips as though he’s getting ready for Hunk to argue back at him. Under most circumstances, he’d probably be right to expect that — but when Hunk says nothing, Lotor sighs and prods with, “So, you have given this question a great deal of thought, my dear?”

Unfortunately, Hunk gives them a nod that would be enthusiastic, if he didn’t look so queasy. “I mean? Mostly, I was just going for the people who were at the party? Figuring, like? You can’t rule out too many people, if you find yourself somewhere like this, staring down the sort of bad life choices that I really, really, _really_ hope my Mom never finds out about because oh my God, she would… Erm?” With a strained grin, Hunk shrugs. His eyes glisten with a _Look_ like he hopes that Shiro and Lotor meant what they said about not judging him any. “I mean, my Mom wouldn’t be _angry_ at me? But she’d probably be disappointed in me, but that’s almost worse, _y’know_?”

“Mmm, I wouldn’t know,” Lotor supposes, pointedly off-handed and not quite getting all the way to deadpan. “Given her temperament and typical approach to problem-solving, Dayak’s disappointment tended to feel rather similar to anger. As for my Father…” He shrugs, and there’s nothing casual about it. “Rage and disappointment went hand-in-hand for him, when I was the subject of discussion. Until he forced me into exile, his means of expressing those sentiments were more or less equally horrific.”

He huffs softly, ducking his chin and dropping his gaze. Without letting go of Hunk’s data-pad, Shiro brushes the backs of his knuckles down Lotor’s arm. It takes a moment for him to react at all, and then another moment before he looks back up at Hunk. But at least Lotor _does_ look up. Better yet, he doesn’t seem to force the smile that he offers them. It might be smallish and a bit on the wan side — but Lotor isn’t faking it, which is probably the best that they can hope for, at the moment.

“Yeah, uh…” Hunk squirms, shoulders hunching in around his chest as if he wants to disappear into thin air. “Sorry, I didn’t… I mean, I am _so_ sorry? And I didn’t _not_ -know about your Father, _obviously_ , I can’t say that I didn’t know? But I didn’t want to, like? Y’know, go anywhere like that in any bad ways for you, or dig up things that you didn’t wanna—”

“Your apologies are appreciated and accepted, but ultimately unnecessary.” Lotor shrugs again, still not cutting a casual impression but giving a distinct air of, _“It is what it is.”_ Which is its own kind of trouble, because nobody should ever get so accustomed to being mistreated — but before Shiro can go too far down that mental rabbit-hole, Lotor cuts back in with, “If you say that enduring your mother’s disappointment in your behavior would be worse for you than enduring her outrage? Then, I shall take your word for it—”

“Yeah, thanks? And I mean? I wouldn’t want to deal with her when she’s in _either_ of those moods, really—”

“Though I would need to question where her priorities lie and whether or not anything would satisfy her—”

“She can be _satisfied_! She just wants the best for me, and she wants me to be _my_ best? And making out with somebody while drunk—”

“In such a case, I would _want_ to question her about her priorities. It hardly seems fair of her to be disappointed, considering—”

“Hey, man, that isn’t exactly — I mean, she’s not a bad person? And her disappointment wouldn’t last _too_ long? And a lot of the issue is that I’m really sensitive? Too much so? And I just want her to be proud of me—”

“You are a _Paladin of Voltron_ , Hunk.” Lotor tries to drawl as if this is any other subject on which he’s condescending to someone — but his voice comes out too tightly, and he scrunches up his face in a way that makes obvious the genuine offense he’s taking. “You spearheaded the move to liberate Balmera X-95-Vox. You and Lance worked with the Blades to free planet Puig from Imperial rule. You and Keith retrieved the scaultrite that was a central piece of the plot that allowed you to severely inhibit my Father’s capabilities, which later became essential to my ability to put him out of the universe’s collective misery. Without you and your efforts, so many of Team Voltron’s projects never would have succeeded — or if they did, then they would have been so much more dangerous and likely resulted in massive losses.”

Another pat on the arm makes Lotor inhale sharply and insist that _he is perfectly fine, thank you very much, Takashi._

Not that this keeps him from huffing like a spoiled teenage brat before he tells Hunk, “Whatever, in all that you have accomplished for the good of the universe, could your mother use to justify any hypothetical disappointment? Unless she is cut from the same cloth as my Father, how could she _possibly_ look at your achievements — at all of the lives you have saved, civilizations you have helped, and entire galactic systems that you have liberated and taught to hope again — and find any cause for displeasure?”

Giving Lotor one of the most singularly dull-eyed, unimpressed expressions in the history of the universe, both oral and written, Hunk makes a throaty sound that is equal parts bemused and mildly annoyed. He slouches like standing up is taking too much mental effort for him to bother with it because, at this point, he knows very well that he has the privilege of _not_ being on his best behavior around Lotor — not least because he sees Lotor as _Lotor_ now, rather than seeing him as _His Imperial Highness, Lotor, son of Zarkon, Current Emperor and Overlord of the Galra_.

“Dude, she’d totally be proud of everything I’ve done with Voltron,” Hunk explains. “But I still got so drunk that I made out with somebody and can’t remember who the Heck they were. In my experience? Most Earthling parents would find that sorta behavior disappointing, if not outright disgraceful. _Some_ parents would call it sinful or even worse.”

Lotor blows at his cowlick and rolls his eyes. “Sometimes, you Earthlings have such ridiculous standards. You kissed someone while under the influence of alcohol. No one died or was so grievously injured as to require healing. Nothing exploded or caught fire. You did not doom an entire planet to extermination, despite your best intentions—”

“Okay, this sounds a lot like you talking about _your_ Father again, though? And no offense, man? But Zarkon’s parenting is kind of an abysmally low bar, and most Earthling parents could do better than him in their sleep—”

“Why would I be offended by that? It is a completely accurate statement—”

“Because I’m indirectly talking shit about you, too?”

“All I mean to say is that your mother would be dreadfully wrong, if she were disappointed in your behavior last night—”

They keep sniping back and forth at each other, but for the sake of his own sanity, Shiro tries to tune them out.

Looking the list over for the umpteenth time, Shiro… _should_ have something to say? He _should_ have any opinions on the situation that he can share. At the very least, he should make an _attempt_ to put Hunk’s mind at ease and assure him that everything will be okay — but despite staring at the names on Hunk’s data-pad, the only thing that Shiro comes up with? Is a lump behind his Adam’s apple and a thick heaviness, like somebody dropped a ten-ton brick in the back of his skull.

If it were only his hangover-headache, then Shiro might not mind so much. Instead, his pulse throbs throughout his entire body, and each heartbeat feels like he has a nasty little gremlin banging on his brain with an oversized mallet.

By his own admission, Hunk put thought into this list, and he decided that Shiro’s name did not belong here.

Hunk would literally rather make out with Coran — the same Coran who blamed him for _“failing the team”_ because he didn’t manage to single-handedly take Ulaz down, subjected him to weeks upon weeks of humiliating fart jokes across several planets and in multiple galaxies (without including all the worlds who received broadcasts of _The Voltron Show!_ ), and is basically Team Voltron’s surrogate uncle — than make out with Shiro.

Still, when Hunk calls his name, Shiro stands up and puts on a smile.

Handing over the data-pad, he says, “Well, if we take that list of names as a starting point? We can work our way through asking them. Unless whoever kissed you was so drunk that they don’t remember either? We’ll find them before lunchtime.”

Perking up for the first time since he got here, Hunk heaves a relieved sigh. As he bounces over to Shiro’s side, he smiles and it makes Shiro’s knees feel like jello molds. “Thanks, man. Seriously, I don’t think I could get through asking people about this on my own, y’know?”

Arching a brow at Shiro, Lotor drawls, “Perhaps you should start with someone _close to you_.”

“But you said that Lance was busy with you, right? And I can’t rule Pidge out, but I’m pretty sure she—”

“Hey, cut Lotor some slack, alright. He’s hungover, too.”

Patting Hunk on the shoulder, Shiro leads him to the door. He only pauses to glare back at Lotor and hopes that he sufficiently conveys the sentiment, _“Shut your beautiful mouth and do not mess this up. You saw the list, too. You know what that means as well as I do. I have a plan and I know what I’m doing. Stop trying to meddle.”_

Which, in turn, only succeeds in making Lotor roll his eyes — but Shiro’s plan is foolproof. All he and Hunk need to do is talk to everybody else on this list. Sooner or later, someone will cop to kissing Hunk, even though they didn’t. Then, they and Hunk can be happy together, and Shiro will move on, resigned to his eternal romantic dissatisfaction.

Maybe he doesn’t like the idea very much. As long as Hunk is happy, though, Shiro will survive.


	3. Chapter 3

Shiro takes them down to Keith’s quarters first, which is about as surprising as the Pope secretly being Catholic.

On the other hand, though, something about this idea doesn’t sit quite right with Hunk? While Shiro raps on Keith’s door, wearing an expression that’s painfully certain about how totally cool his plan is, Hunk folds his arms over his chest. Grumbling softly, he stares at his belly and the sliver of floor that he can see around it. No, it’s not a shock that Shiro would turn to Keith before anybody else — but considering the _Shiro-and-Keith_ of it all, this feels like the Pope revealed himself to be both Catholic _and_ an ancient magical monster made from dinosaur fossils that somehow gained sentience and ate some really bad rye bread.

Maybe Shiro gave himself ergot poisoning, too. That’d explain him going so crazy as to consider Keith an actual option, instead of dismissing the idea outright and getting defensive about Hunk even thinking about snogging Keith. Okay, self-induced ergot poisoning might prove hard to manage while they’re out in space, even for someone as dangerprone as Shiro. Just in case, though, Hunk squints at Shiro’s profile as if he might find any answers in that stupidly beautiful, heroically chiseled jaw.

Unfortunately, Hunk doesn’t know how to tell whether or not Shiro actually _has_ ergot poisoning. Then again, given his headache? Smart money says that if he did know what to look for, he wouldn’t remember the laundry list of symptoms until tomorrow afternoon. By that point, who knows? Shiro’s space-poisoning could have killed him, and Keith would have to step in as Black Paladin again despite his grief, and even though he’d do the best he could, everyone would die from a crushing lack of Shiro.

Either way, Hunk can’t focus on his attempted armchair diagnoses, at the moment. Not when Shiro insists on looking so stupidly pretty while knocking on Keith’s door another time and calling for him to open up already. How can any human being look so good while hungover? Seriously, who gave Shiro the right to stand there with a body like a one-armed, silver-haired Adonis? Who blessed him with those genes and decided that it was fair for him to make Hunk’s heart do flip-flops like it’s competing in the hopes of making an Olympic gymnastics team? Who allowed him to do these things to Hunk while remaining completely unaware of both the effect he has on people _and_ how good-looking he is? How can anybody so beautiful _not know_ that they’re beautiful? Hell, Coran capitalized on those good looks in all the _Voltron Show_ merchandise. How can Shiro _fail to understand_ that he is a paragon of human beauty?

Unless the physical beauty actually comes more from any of the countless things that Haggar and her Druids did to Shiro. In that case, Hunk doesn’t want to know the specifics and will apologize to the universe’s intangible consciousness for being such a brat over things that really don’t matter that much, relatively speaking.

Until he gets put in his place about this or not, though? He would like to register so many complaints with reality for letting Shiro be an actual human person who exists in Hunk’s general vicinity. He would like to register even more complaints with his own inability to avoid developing crushes on people who show him the bare minimum of kindness and basic decency. He would like to register the most complaints with the fact that the worst crush he’s ever had on anyone has led him to this place: standing outside of a room where said crush-victim has probably had sex with the person who actually has a residential claim on these quarters.

Unless Keith and Shiro prefer screwing outside the privacy of their rooms. In which case, Hunk would like to register the most complaints about how the pair of them have likely fucked on the common-room couches, which is totally rude because _other people sit on those_.

From the funereal sound of his sighing, though, Shiro would like to register infinity-plus-one complaints with the fact that he’s been knocking for a good five or six doboshes, and his right-hand man of choice still hasn’t opened up. Setting his jaw and narrowing his eyes, Shiro takes a deep breath. He hangs his head as though he might give up, and then bangs on the door so hard that Hunk jumps back.

Behind the door, somebody squawks. Something dull and heavy hits the floor like an anvil dropping onto some poor cartoon character’s head. While the squawking person groans in pain, it sounds like a second voice starts making noise.

Which should make Shiro get concerned, right? After all, he’s standing out here with Hunk. Unless he and Keith have been polyamorous this entire time without telling anybody, there’s no reason for Keith to have anybody else in his room with him. Before Hunk can think too hard about the second voice, though, Keith slams his door open.

“Shiro, you know I love you,” Keith grumbles. Once he fails to hold back a yawn, he gives Shiro a weird, throaty noise that’s like a vocal Arnold Palmer, but instead of being made with iced tea and lemonade, Keith mixed it up out of a groan and a whine. “But I swear by whatever old Altean god Lotor’s paying the most attention to this week: there’d better be a good goddamn reason for you waking me up right now.”

Shiro’s sympathetic smile seeps out of every word as he asks, “Rough night, baby?”

“ _Very_ rough. And I was kinda hoping to have a similarly rough morning. Until _somebody_ decided to bang on my door. You don’t even have the courtesy to bring the Girl Scout Cookie order form, either…”

“Keith, we are out in space, innumerable light-years away from Earth. Where am I going to get a Girl Scout cookie order form.”

“I don’t know! You’re the fucking genius, Pretty Boy! Come up with something, and then I’ll buy all the Thin Mints you’re legally allowed to sell me.”

Sure, this chin-wagging _sounds_ like business as usual, like the _Shiro-and-Keith_ who Hunk’s come to know so well. Still, though, something in the back of Hunk’s mind won’t stop telling him that something’s wrong and probably going to explode. Knowing Keith, he’s probably scowling and ready to scream bloody murder — but Hunk’s more distracted by the lack of both clothing and modesty blankets going on right now.

Pale and punctuated by the occasional scar — and, at the moment, quite a few deep marks that look suspiciously like love-bites, some of which have bruises blooming — Keith’s skin gleams in the bright lights of the corridor. Jesus, he has one of the most enviable bodies Hunk has ever seen, more so after the time that he and Krolia spent in the quantum abyss. Whipcord-tight muscle teases Hunk all over, from his taut, washboard abs to the gun show that Keith’s packing in his biceps. From his firm pecs to his thighs so thick that Keith could join Shiro in the _“We Crunch Watermelons Between Our Legs For Funsies”_ Club. From the way his arms tense up as if Keith’s struggling to keep from punching Shiro in the face to the…… Oh.

Oh, that is Keith’s dick. Unless Hunk’s passed out, or hallucinating, or something like that?

Except Keith stretches out with a groan, flashing even more muscle (which shouldn’t be humanly possible, when he’s standing here buck-ass naked, but hey, maybe his Galra genes give him that superpower). As Keith scratches his abs all over again, he swivels his hips, and that one particular part of his body flops back and forth like a hypnotist’s watch, and — _oh_.

Okay, that is _definitely_ Keith’s dick, and it’s hanging out in the open while Keith demands to know why he’s getting woken up when there’s no emergency and nobody’s immediately dying. God, Keith scratches at his dusting of happy-trail as if he doesn’t care how naked he is. Or how much he makes his cock swing around. Or with the fact that _Hunk is standing right here, distinctly not Shiro, and he can see Keith’s buck-ass naked dick_.

Flushing so hot, it’s a miracle that he doesn’t start a fire, Hunk stifles a gasp and forces himself to look at Keith’s face. He tells himself to behave, keep his eyes to himself, and focus on Keith’s bleary-eyed bemusement and the way his longish black hair looks like somebody fucked him into the mattress last night. True, it’s a good look for him. Granted, in Hunk’s opinion, very few people look _bad_ with sex-hair, but Keith in particular has a devil-may-care air about him makes the bedraggled messiness of it all come off as completely intentional. However, Keith’s hair is nowhere near the point of what Hunk and Shiro supposed to accomplish, here.

Aside from that, Keith’s nudity really doesn’t say anything nice about _Shiro_. Who the Hell sleeps with one guy, then brings Hunk here to see the map of hickeys that he left all over Keith’s body instead of _helping_? Unless this is _supposed_ to help, but if that’s the case, then Shiro has a lot of explaining to do about how showing off the aftermath of his own conquests is supposed to do anything for _Hunk_?

Grunting softly, Keith runs a palm up and down his cheek. “Look, can I get _back_ to my rough night, or do you guys _need_ something?”

“Hunk needs something, not me. It’s just, like—”

“Do you know who I made out with last night?” Once the words burst out of Hunk, there’s no stopping them: “I mean, we were _supposed_ to ask if I made out with _you_? But since you and Shiro were obviously, like, y’know?”

Shoulders drooping as if standing up takes more energy than he wants to expend, Keith blinks at Hunk like he’s started spouting off the notoriously difficult, borderline untranslatable Trivy dialect of planet Qaarizi’s Enoban language. Giving him a _“come at me”_ shrug only makes Keith frown and shake his head. Hunk splutters and flaps his arms, waving both his free hand and the data-pad at all Keith’s hickeys — but Keith only gives up a half-whining sound that desperately wants to go back to bed.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he insists.

Hunk wants to grab Keith by his shoulders, bodily shake him, and yell, _“You obviously had sex with Shiro, you big, naked, quiznakking fibber!”_ so loudly that everyone on Olkarion hears it.

Instead, somebody groans behind Keith before Hunk can get the words out. Looking over Keith’s shoulder, he squints into the faint shadows. The light makes it far enough into the room for Hunk see someone else wiggling in Keith’s bed. If Shiro notices, he’s not saying anything — which makes a scream start bubbling up inside Hunk’s chest because _come on, seriously?_ It’s one thing for Shiro and Keith to flaunt how much sex they had last night. It’s one thing for Keith to play dumb about how much sex they had last night. It’s one thing for Shiro to act like there’s absolutely nothing weird about his idea of “help” or the fact that Keith is still so very naked.

But for Shiro to seem so singularly unbothered by the obvious presence of someone else in Keith’s bed? That’s gotta be something else entirely. Possibly a polyamorous something else, but that still wouldn’t account for why Shiro’s hung up on acting like everything about this scene is normal, fine and dandy, totally business as per freaking usual aboard the old Castle of Lions.

He doesn’t even blink when the _someone_ in Keith’s bed drags themself into sitting up.

Granted, Hunk doesn’t blink either so much as he squints? But unlike the Galra and Alteans on this ship, with their increased ability to see perfectly fine in low-light conditions, Hunk needs a moment to make out more than a slight-shouldered silhouette. Peering over Keith’s shoulder, he slowly pieces together the high cheekbones and vaguely blocky jawline… the twitching of huge ears that remind Hunk of an Earthling bat… the languorous, swishing moment like a prehensile tail…

And then Keith leans in to block Hunk’s view. Lips pursed and nose wrinkled, he stares at Hunk as if to say, _“You’ve got five ticks to explain yourself, big man, or else I’m gonna kick your ass. Five… Four… Three… Two—”_

“I thought I saw someone else in there, okay?” Hunk blushes and ducks his chin. “I just wanted to know who you—”

“It’s Regris, okay,” Keith tells him flatly. “I had really good sex with _Regris_ last night, and neither of us kissed you—”

“That’s fair — and, uh, hey, Keith? Thanks for answering? And for help—”

“It’s whatever, man. Hope you find who you’re looking for.”

Why he needs to look at _Shiro_ while saying this, Hunk can’t imagine for the life of him.

But before he can think too hard about asking, Keith quirks his finger at Shiro. “You, come in for a few ticks. We need to talk.”

Shiro agrees without putting up a fuss, which isn’t surprising, when Keith’s the one who’s asking for a moment of his time.

Still, a door slamming in his face has never before made Hunk feel so _empty_ , as if somebody has dug into his soul with an oversized ice cream scoop and taken out his emotions. Leaning against the wall to wait for Shiro, Hunk only hopes that whoever did that to him left behind enough pulp to put himself back together later.

*** * ***

Heading down the corridor toward the next unwitting victim of this inquisition, Shiro keeps his head bowed. He only looks up enough to dodge as necessary and avoid crashing into anyone or anything — which proves, by and large, unnecessary. Most of the castle’s inhabitants _do_ seem to be preoccupied after last night’s festivities, so Shiro gets off more easily on one count.

Unfortunately, it leaves him and Hunk with a walk down a hallway of teammates’ empty quarters. Leaves Shiro wandering around with the guy on the receiving end of his secret crush, without much in the way of ideas for what to talk about. On a good day, this is probably a punishment worthy of the worst Hells imagined by any species in the universe. Doing it while hungover, though? Shiro must have seriously screwed up, this time.

As they stumble toward the elevator, Hunk makes a throaty little noise like he has something important on his mind.

As they wait for it to answer their call, he shifts his weight from foot to foot, fussing with the hem of his t-shirt in a way that makes Shiro want to point out how he won’t help himself any by doing that. Maybe it helps Hunk’s nerves in the short-term, but he won’t like the endgame results. Ultimately, all he’ll accomplish is making his shirt unravel.

As they pad into the car, Shiro leans on the wall and closes his eyes to diminish how much the bright lights aggravate his headache, while Hunk clears his throat as if he’s really going to bring up whatever he’s thinking, this time for sure.

He waits until the lift starts heading down toward his and Pidge’s workroom before he needles, “ _So_ , Keith wanted to have a _talk_ , huh?”

Humming, Shiro nods. “On the list of things that I expected to happen today? ‘Getting put in my place by the guy who once tried to tell me that assault should be legal if the person he’s punching insulted _me_ , and I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not’ — uh?” With a huff, Shiro stretches out. It helps absolutely nothing with Shiro’s nerves, but physically, he feels perhaps a smidgen better. “Yeah, that fell somewhere down around, ‘Nyarlathotep attacking the castle-ship out of nowhere’ and, ‘My Aunt Satomi showing up here with a mind to ask why the message I sent home to her and her wife wasn’t longer.’”

With his whole body drooping, Hunk furrows his brow like that answer was the last thing that he expected. “Shiro, man… I mean, come on, right? We just wandered into evidence about Keith and Regris sleeping together? So, you’re allowed to, like, be upset about that? And talk about it? Y’know, if you need to? Or wanna talk to somebody?”

“…Why would I be upset about Keith and Regris having sex, exactly?” Shiro massages the bridge of his nose as if it might make more sense out of whatever Hunk thinks he’s babbling about. “They’ve been trying to figure out how they could fit together sexually for a _while_ , now. Apparently, there’s some pretty wide variety among Galra genitalia… Takes a lot of prep, if Keith ever wants—”

“But aren’t _you_ dating Keith?!” When Shiro frowns at him, Hunk shrugs almost guiltily. Rubbing at the back of his neck, he clarifies, “I mean, you’ve got all that _history_ , and you _do_ have a bias for Keith? Always have, too? I sure thought that you were dating—”

“Do we seriously come off as dating?” Getting a nod out of Hunk makes Shiro groan. He lets his head loll back against the wall — and as the elevator lets them out, he says, “If I tell you that Keith is my _t’hy’la_ , will that mean anything to you?”

“Oh, yeah, totally! Vintage _Star Trek_ — but then, people usually say that about Kirk and Spock? And people also say that _they_ were—”

“Keith and I aren’t dating. _T’hy’la_ don’t need to be romantic. Just…” Shiro shrugs. God, who gave language the right to be so difficult? Also, why can’t Shiro magically absorb all of Lotor’s knowledge about different aliens cultures’ ideas about love? “We trust each other. We love each other. We’re devoted to each other. He means the world to me — it’s just not exactly a romantic kind of love, okay? Or sexual? Things probably wouldn’t change that much between us, if it were either of those things? But that hasn’t developed between us yet, so…”

Having to explain this while knowing that he’s apparently the only person on the castle-ship who Hunk wouldn’t want to kiss? Hits Shiro like a kick in the stomach.

Still, he’s not sure if that’s better or worse when Hunk asks, “So, are you and _Lotor_ a thing? I mean, since Alteans are into polyamory—”

“Alteans are not _into_ polyamory. They have certain social and cultural ideas about the nature of love and relationships—”

“That make polyamory pretty commonplace — or at least, it used to, right?”

Shiro reaches for his elbow. Maybe gripping onto it will ground him better in the moment…

Swishing his hand through the thin air where his right arm used to be, Shiro comes up with no elbow. Nothing convenient for him to grab up and put pressure on, and…

Well, it does ground him in the here-and-now, he supposes. Being reminded that he _can’t_ have that old technique for anchoring himself drags Shiro kicking and screaming back to the perpetually sterile smell of the castle’s corridors… the inexplicable (and probably magical) way that the castle always seems to be the perfect temperature and the air never feels stifling… the bright lights above him and Hunk, and the way that looking too much in their direction hits the inside of Shiro’s skull like a crashing shuttle… No, it isn’t the way that he _wanted_ to keep himself in the moment — but if it works, it works.

Even so, Shiro needs to heave a sigh before he can tell Hunk, “Lotor and I aren’t dating, either. Or courting each other, which is the more formal—”

“Aww, but you guys would be such a cute couple, though—”

“If we _were_ dating, it wouldn’t do much to help you with the mystery of the day. As far as I saw, Lotor really was preoccupied with Lance last night. To the exclusion of everyone else.” Shiro holds a deep breath for a count of ten, then huffs. “The fact that Alteans _do_ practice polyamory more openly and more commonly? Doesn’t stop any of them from having some crushes that are more powerful than others.”

Hunk takes a deep breath as he thinks that over, then gives Shiro a nod. “Good point — but does that mean we can’t rule out Allura anymore? Because she and Lotor have their thing, then he has his thing with Lance? And she might or might not also go there with Lance? But in the meantime, she has her thing with Zethrid, so I mean…?”

As if on cue, rounding a corner brings them right to both Zethrid and Allura.

More specifically, it brings Hunk and Shiro to the pace where Allura has Zethrid pinned against a wall, kissing her so deeply that neither of them seems to notice the pair of interlopers watching. Not that Shiro can hold this against them; a casual glance says that Allura and Zethrid more than know what they’re doing with a kiss. One of the Princess’s long, slender arms rests against Zethrid’s chest while the other hand ruffles gently over Zethrid’s fluffy ear. As Zethrid cups one of her enormous, furry hands around Allura’s ass, one of them growls. Shiro can’t tell who, and despite the nagging, nosy impulse that flares up in the back of his mind, he doesn’t want to know.

Choking down another sigh, Shiro puts his hand on his hip. Hunk’s blushing and hugging his data-pad, but now that he’s gotten certain ideas in his head, _his_ curiosity won’t be satisfied until someone gets a clear, direct answer for him.

Shiro’s gonna hate himself for this later, but he clears his throat. “Hey, Allura! Quick question.”

Although Allura and Zethrid don’t pull apart, both of Zethrid’s hands snap up. Guilt twists around the pit of Shiro’s stomach — Jesus, he didn’t want to _scare_ Zethrid. Or make her look like she’s gotten caught in a robbery. As she and Allura stare at him in silence, their eyes go wider than an Ulanghan glibble fish’s, which only makes his heart sink even further in his chest. But he’s already interrupted them and they deserve an explanation. Setting his jaw and hoping that no one notices enough to call him out on how much force he’s putting into it, Shiro points at Hunk.

“We’re looking for whoever made out with Hunk last night,” he says. “Did either of you kiss him?”

Zethrid’s entire face scrunches up in obvious disgust. “Not my thing. More boys for you.”

Shiro can’t help sighing at that. Man, he’ll be lucky if his face hasn’t gone strawberry red. Still, he forces a tight smile at Allura. “How about you, Princess?”

Shaking her head, Allura giggles and Shiro grinds his teeth so hard that he might dislocate his jaw. She comes off fondly, sure. Somewhat prim, but more or less like she would on any other day — except for the distinctly smug air like she wants to sing-song about how she knows something you don’t know.

“I wish you luck in your search,” she says, eyes glimmering impishly. “Who knows? Perhaps the answer is closer than you might imagine.”

As he stomps off toward the workroom, Shiro’s grateful for the silence. More so for the fact that Hunk doesn’t ask what he thinks Allura meant by that. Aside from not wanting to answer that question honestly, Shiro needs all the time he can get to ready himself for what they might stumble into next. The way today’s been going, they’re liable to find Pidge and Ezor rutting on each other, or Pidge groping around in Ezor’s underwear, or Ezor eating Pidge out as if her life depends on it.

Watching the workroom door draw ever closer, Shiro hopes like Hell that they _don’t_ wander in on that. But hope hasn’t accomplished anything so far today. Why should the universe start caring about that now?

*** * ***

Watching Ezor fumble with Pidge’s bra is one of the last things that Hunk expected to see today. He’s not complaining, but neither of them kissed him last night, which… Okay, he sorta saw that coming? It’s exasperating, though.

Lance flopped on the kitchen table and nursing probably the worst hangover out of anyone’s? More foreseeable, but not really something that Hunk enjoys. The only upside is that Lance asks where Lotor is, so hopefully, Hunk’s best buddy will be back to his usual, sparking self in short order.

When he and Shiro find Krolia on one of the common room couches, she gives them a _Pointed Look_ that dares them to waste her time at their peril. Shiro once more takes the lead on asking the question, and as soon as he gets it out, Krolia’s mouth screws up in a twist like she’s going to be sick. Not the reaction Hunk would’ve _liked_ , considering the extent to which Keith’s mom has got it going on, both physically and in terms of being generally phenomenal. It’s infinitely worse, however, when she doubles over laughing.

That, in turn, gets magnified by a power of ten when Acxa and Romelle run in from another corridor and dart to Krolia’s side. While Romelle combs her fingers through Krolia’s impossibly fluffy, violet hair and tries to talk her into breathing more regularly, Acxa explains that none of the three of them kissed Hunk last night.

She also joins the ranks of people who inexplicably look at _Shiro_ while talking about what _Hunk_ did or didn’t do last night. By now, though, Hunk should probably expect that more than anything else. Pretty much everybody’s done it, and there’s no reason for them to stop.

When they double back to the bridge to find Kolivan, Hunk wishes that he’d simply stare at Shiro and make cryptic statements. Insides twisting and squirming like they want him to pass out and die, Hunk wishes that _something_ about Kolivan’s appearance or demeanor would make no sense in the same “slightly annoying but almost comedic” way as everyone who’s glared at Shiro while talking about Hunk’s love life. He wishes that the only thing amiss with Kolivan was something bigger and easier to decipher than the fur on top of his head looking oddly rumpled, like maybe Kolivan slept in a weird position.

Instead, Kolivan’s ears twitch in palpable irritation and he swishes out his braid. “Can you repeat the question.”

He phrases this as a request. Even feigns the upward inflection. But every iota of Kolivan’s tone makes it obvious that he is not asking Hunk or Shiro for anything. He is _telling_ them to explain themselves, and he’s probably hoping that they’ll say something else. Something that Kolivan _won’t_ massively disapprove of. Jeez, if he were a cartoon character, Hunk bets that Kolivan would turn more a vividly scarlet shade than the Red Lion. He’d probably have angry steam rising off of him, a visible vein throbbing in his forehead (even if that doesn’t exactly line up with Galra biology, at least not for Kolivan), and the whole nine yards.

Hunching in on himself, Hunk can’t shake off the feeling that, unless Shiro come up with a truly brilliant and immaculately tailored version of the story, Kolivan’s going to blast both of them with heat-vision until there’s nothing left of Hunk Garrett or Takashi Shirogane but the stench of burning flesh and a mixed-up heap of ashes.

Unfortunately, Shiro only manages to sigh like he wants to go back to bed and tell Kolivan, “Hunk kissed someone at Lance’s birthday party last night. But he was so drunk that he doesn’t remember who it was. We’re trying to find them, whoever they are. Was it you, yes or no?”

Kolivan seethes. “We are in the middle of a war, and _this_ is what you bring to me?”

Squaring his shoulders and crossing his arms over his chest, Kolivan seems even taller. Which doesn’t faze Shiro any — not with the way he shrugs and blinks up at Kolivan as if asking why he’s supposed to be impressed — but Hunk feels like his heart could burst out of his chest. Listening to Shiro explain everything that he’s already done for the the Coalition so far today, Hunk shrinks on himself further and shuffles behind his Fearless Leader. He holds perfectly still until his nerves feel like they’ll catch fire if he doesn’t let himself fidget with his shirt.

No, moving here doesn’t give Hunk a good hiding place. No, Shiro’s chest and shoulders aren’t broad enough to cover Hunk entirely. But it feels safer, peeking out from behind Shiro, rather than giving Kolivan a clear, open shot at his chest.

Not that cover will matter, if Kolivan _does_ blast them with heat vision. But Keith probably would’ve told them if Kolivan could do that.

Probably.

Hunk hopes.

Drumming his clawed fingertips along his bicep, Kolivan glares at Shiro as though he intends to chew the Black Paladin out harder than Commander Iverson going after Lance. He takes a deep breath, waiting for Shiro to react. Or to say something for himself. Or to retract what he’s said, blame everything on the alcohol, and let Kolivan slink back to mentally living in a version of reality in which Shiro is a perfectly perfect leader who doesn’t waste time on any activities that Kolivan clearly considers demeaning distractions.

Shiro makes a sound like the vocal equivalent of a shrug. “All we need is a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ alright? Then, we’ll be out of your hair.”

“The state of my follicles is none of your _concern_.” Kolivan huffs as if it’s taking herculean effort not to stomp at them and act like a Galran kit who didn’t get the exact training sword that they wanted for their natal day. “I do not know how humans comport themselves on Earth, or what societal rules and regulations you have in place to govern the conduct of soldiers. However, in all my ages of war against the Galra Empire, Shiro? I have _never_ seen _anyone_ who has so thoroughly failed to understand the idea that fraternization is a luxury that no one on the battlefield can afford.”

“What _fraternization_?” Shiro balks like a teenager getting chastised for missing curfew on a school night. “Hunk isn’t consorting with an Imperial officer as far as we know, since there aren’t any on the castle-ship. If he _had_ kissed any of his fellow Paladins, those of us from Earth were all either officers, officers-in-training, or former officers-in-training of the Galaxy Garrison. Sure, comparing positions between the Coalition’s factions can get hazy, since Team Voltron, Team Sincline, the rebels, the Blades, and different planets’ armed services don’t always have internal hierarchies that line up? But none of the names Hunk considered—”

“ _Any_ conduct of this sort puts _everyone_ in jeopardy.” Kolivan narrows his eyes and curls up his lips. Although he barely raises his voice — even though he forces his tone to stay even and measured — it sure feels like he’s bellowing. “Romantic relationships during wartime only serve to distract people. Emotions run high. Judgment becomes clouded. Priorities get misplaced as the most important things — as the _mission_ — fall away and are, all too often, forgotten. How could you, the leader and a leg of Voltron, so much as _think_ of allowing yourselves to come to me with such a, a… With such a pointlessly _frivolous_ matter as—”

The doors to the bridge _whoosh!_ open. As a pleasant hum and sprightly footsteps tap toward them, Kolivan goes graveyard-silent. Hunk would bet anything that, underneath the fur on his hands, Kolivan’s knuckles are going white from how tightly he’s holding his own elbow. Even if they aren’t, though, Kolivan’s hand trembles and he fails to fully set his jaw.

A white-gloved hand drops onto his shoulder. Wearing a smile brighter than sunshine, Coran nudges a mug at Kolivan. Probably either caf or tea, whichever Kolivan prefers — but Hunk doesn’t get a chance to ponder it before he watches Coran stretch up to kiss Kolivan’s cheek.

In turn, he doesn’t get a chance to ponder _that_ before Coran’s beaming at him and Shiro like all of this makes a single lick of sense.

“Any luck with the search, Paladins?” He waggles his eyebrows as if he knows something that they don’t. At least, in the face of Hunk’s confused spluttering, Coran shrugs and explains, “I ran into Lance down in the kitchen. He said that the pair of you are looking for the lucky person who snagged a kiss from Hunk last night.”

“Uh… yeah, we are?” Shiro scratches at the back of his neck and almost whacks his fingertips against Hunk’s cheek. “Still haven’t made any real progress, though? I mean, unless you count ruling out a lot of people who _didn’t_ kiss him?”

“Ah well,” Coran sighs in the wistful tone of someone who is, at most, two steps off from swooning about the joys and pitfalls of young love. Leaning his head on Kolivan’s shoulder, he twitches his mustache and gives Hunk a smile. “Unfortunately for you, I know two more names that you can cross right off that list. Kolivan spent quite a _lengthy_ night with yours truly—”

“Beloved, _please_ ,” Kolivan groans. Man, Hunk should feel bad, watching him dig at his temple like he’s got a secret surprise buried there, under all the layers of fur, and skin, and bone, and probably incredibly disgusting cerebral viscera.

But considering the call-out that Coran interrupted? Hunk only does his best to muffle his snickering in Shiro’s shoulder.

Huffing in amusement, Coran suggests that they get back to the hunt before the hour gets too late. “It is nearing lunchtime, after all. And as we well know, time waits for no one. Not even for dashingly handsome defenders of the universe.”

“Thanks, Coran,” Shiro says with a chuckle. “We’ll keep you posted on finding Hunk’s true love.”

“Oh, I think you’re probably nearing the end of that search, Paladins.” Which would be a perfectly fine statement on its own.

Except Coran catches Hunk’s eye before letting him follow Shiro off the bridge.

Once they’re looking at each other, Coran cocks his head in Shiro’s direction. As if his actions are perfectly self-explanatory and his intentions make themselves more obvious than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, Coran gives Hunk a warm smile and a wink.

Hunk doesn’t think; he bolts. Grabbing Shiro’s wrist, Hunk drags him along. _Holy crowing quiznak_ , he cannot get off this bridge too quickly.  


*** * ***

Once they hit the end of Hunk’s list of possibilities, he can barely stand up on his own two feet and he looks like the castle-ship’s walls have become a cage for him. Slumped against one of them, he trembles and hides his face in his hands. He’s breathing, but it sounds like he needs to force his lungs to cooperate with every inhale. Dragging his fingers through his hair, Hunk tugs so hard, it’s a miracle that he doesn’t pull out any handfuls, and when he meets Shiro’s gaze, he looks like he might start crying.

God, Shiro wishes that he didn’t know how horrible you need to feel, in order to look like that. Trying to tune out the mishmash of pining love songs currently tormenting his own inner monologue, Shiro keeps his sighing to himself. With his hand between Hunk’s shoulder-blades, Shiro shepherds him into the elevator, down the staircase in the grand foyer, and out the front doors, into the Olkari sunlight.

For all the brightness makes Shiro wince a bit less than he’s done so far today, getting out into the open air helps him to breathe more easily. As he leads Hunk away from the castle-ship, in the direction of the capital city’s nearest public garden, Shiro watches his friend closely. Tries to keep an eye on whether or not Hunk’s calming down. Fortunately, the Olkari around here have gotten so used to the Paladins, Allura, and Coran that almost no one gawks at them. The only exception is a child who’s waiting in a queue for a frozen darberry treat, and the adult standing with them whispers something that makes the poor kid avert their eyes.

If not for the current circumstances, Shiro wouldn’t mind stopping to sign an autograph for them. Hunk might not mind, either. For all fans are one of his least favorite parts of being a Paladin (and his absolute least favorite part of _The Voltron Show!_ and the horrible, slow-burn hydra of its aftermath), Hunk usually doesn’t mind dealing with the kids.

Today, though, he doesn’t seem to loosen up any until they’ve spent a couple doboshes ambling through the collection of trees, and flowers, and carefully manicured hedges. By the time they find the topiary sculptures shaped like different mythical Olkari beasts, Hunk nearly manages to smile. Following the stream that leads deeper into the gardens, they come to the centerpiece of this particular enclave of arboreal bliss and semi-natural tranquility: a tiny waterfall, crafted out of the surroundings through the Olkari’s not-exactly-magic.

Plopping down under one of the jilayvy trees, Hunk sighs and leans against the bark. Filtering through the leaves above him, the light dances off his round cheeks and makes the faint smile curling up his lips look so much more peaceful. If not for how he witnessed Hunk’s earlier upset — and if not for how much his body sags with exhaustion — Shiro would think that Hunk’s been having a perfectly normal, pleasant day with no upsets whatsoever and nothing at all worth writing home about. Hell, if he didn’t know Hunk as well as he does, he might think that Hunk’s only tired because he didn’t sleep well last night.

As much as Shiro wants to sit, he waits, just in case getting too close might exacerbate any lingering anxiety and drag Hunk back to where they started — or to someplace even worse. He holds off on doing anything until Hunk pats the grass beside him. With that permission given, Shiro takes a seat, splays his legs out in the grass, and reclines against the tree. Perhaps he should have something to say — after promising Hunk that they’d find his mystery make-out partner, Shiro probably owes him that much — but as he lets his head lean backward, Shiro can’t think of anything worth telling anybody. No explanations worthy of the giant mess that this still might explode into, if Shiro doesn’t handle everything with care.

Blinking up at the leaves, he doesn’t get any hangover headache feelings. A small kindness, Shiro supposes, because he can’t shake the feeling that he and Hunk might be sitting in the thickest, most humid air that either of them will ever need to endure. They could practically choke on the oxygen instead of getting sustenance — and worst of all, the problem comes not from the unseen moisture hovering around them, but from something that needs to be said.

Which is fair enough, because they _do_ have things that merit discussion — but the only idea Shiro comes up with isn’t a real option. It hasn’t been a real option since the beginning of this misadventure. Hunk’s list ruled it right out.

After what feels like ages (though, in reality, it probably hasn’t been a full varga), Hunk sighs and gently nudges at Shiro’s shoulder. He mumbles something that Shiro can’t entirely piece together. The tone is soft and borderline apologetic, though. That much comes in so clearly for Shiro, it might as well be a vocal white diamond. In the hopes of making this conversation mild-to-moderately easier, Shiro shifts around so he can look at Hunk.

“I just wanted to say thanks for helping me out with this.” Shrugging, Hunk bows his head and sighs. “I mean, you probably had so many other things you needed to do today. And it’s my own fault that I couldn’t remember who I kissed, so fishing me out of this?”

“You’ve probably never blacked out like that before last night, yeah?” Shiro waits for Hunk to nod, then smiles at him. Hopefully, it reassures him somewhat, instead of seeming creepy. “Look, the first time I got that drunk? I woke up in my old Garrison roommate’s cousin’s bed, surrounded by a truly disturbing amount of plush-toys shaped like Batman and wearing somebody else’s clothes — which, for the record? Included a skin-tight mesh crop-top and hot pink panties that did not fit me. And then when Ollie’s cousin woke up—”

Hunk’s undignified snorting would’ve been one thing, had they stuck to that.

Instead of sparing Shiro’s dignity, though, Hunk doubles over, clutching his belly and laughing more loudly than Shiro’s heard him do in far too long. Good thing Shiro has his arm pressed up against the tree. It impedes his movement enough that he’s got a half-baked excuse for not pulling out his personal mini-pad that vaguely approximates the functions of a mobile phone. This, in turn, gets Shiro out of knowing exactly how long Hunk keeps laughing, which is good because putting numbers on anything might take him to an even lower point in what should already be Shiro’s absolute nadir of self-induced humiliation.

Seriously, sharing one of his youthful misadventures with and then getting laughed all the way to planet Yaknessone and back again by the guy he’s harbored a crunch on for long enough that Keith will probably threaten to tell Hunk the truth before he leaves on his next mission with the Blades (and Shiro won’t feel good about even hypothetically objecting, considering how much self-indulgent garbage Keith has had to listen to about this crush)? Realistically, Shiro knows that he’s been lower before. With his luck and the fact that he’s a walking, talking magnet for all things even remotely trouble-adjacent, Shiro will no doubt end up lower than this at some point.

For the moment, though? Things feel about as low as it’s possible to get while _pulling a Shiro_ , as he so often does. The only upside in all of this — the one thing making this marginally more tolerable — is the fact that Shiro at least got Hunk to smile.

Nudging Shiro’s collarbone, Hunk beams like the biggest ray of sunshine. “Man, someday, you’ve gotta tell me more of those stories—”

“Oh, no, no, no, no.” As if it might cancel out his voice’s unintentionally playful lilt, Shiro shakes his head. “This is — I mean, these are? It’s not like—” He inhales sharply, deeply, and scratches at his own palm. “I do _not_ tell riveting stories of intrigue and adventure, okay? I tell _cautionary tales_ about the necessity of drinking responsibly. Y’know, instead of letting your impulse control take a vacation that it definitely has not earned.”

“I’m pretty sure I learned that lesson fine after last night, okay?” Whining softly, Hunk slouches even further and pouts as if Shiro just denied his request to stop for space-smoothies on the way back to the castle from a mission. He squirms like he’s trying to scratch his back on the tree. “I mean, jeez, I thought there was only one person I could rule out for sure? But now, I don’t even know.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Shiro bites out before he can stop himself. Cringing, he flops away, off his side and onto his back again. But when Hunk gives him that bemused little whine, Shiro can’t let him twist like that. He drags his hand through his hair and says, “My name was the practically the only one _missing_ from your list. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that?”

“Oh, I… Not like it’s, I mean?” Hunk gulps. “…I was hoping that you wouldn’t?”

When Shiro glances over at Hunk’s lap, he spots those beautiful hands fussing with Hunk’s shirt again. But before he can give Hunk a response, Hunk groans with his entire body. The sound comes out of him with a deep, bone-rattling shudder, then drags another whine out of Hunk, so tight and high-pitched that Shiro flinches. At least his head doesn’t throb as badly as it did before, though.

“Come on, Shiro, you _know_ I didn’t mean it, like, in a _bad_ way—”

“How _did_ you mean it, then? Because I _know_ you wouldn’t try to hurt a friend deliberately, but all I can come up with? Is that you just don’t want to have kissed me.” Shrugging, Shiro picks at the fabric of his pants. “Like, making out with Coran would’ve been less disappointing than making out with me. That’s how much it feels like you _don’t want_ to kiss me.”

“ _Seriously_? It’s not like that, it’s more like, ‘Oh man, I would _never_ get drunk enough to’… Wait.” Hunk thwaps the back of his hand at Shiro’s shoulder. “ _Did_ I kiss you?”

Shiro’s cheeks flush warm and bright as he mumbles, “Maybe.”

“Holy crow!” Hunk thwacks at Shiro’s bicep with more force, this time. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make Shiro wince. “Did you know that _the whole quiznakking time_ , or did it come back to you while we were working, or what, here?”

“Would any answer I give you make the situation _different_?”

“Uh, yeah! ‘Cause in one option, you got your memory back and got embarrassed. But in the other one?” Hunk butts his heel at the ground and kicks up a bit of dirt and grass. Unbothered by this disturbance, the landscape glows as more earth fills in the divot. With a heavy sigh, Hunk wraps up, “Look, if you knew the whole time and didn’t tell me? Then it’s like you dragged me off on a wild goose chase when we could’ve—”

“Yeah, because I thought someone else would eventually say that they kissed you—”

“Literally why would you think that? Considering how many cute or sexy couple moments we interrupted—”

“I didn’t know that some of those relationships were even… Like, I thought Keith and Regris were still dancing around in, like…”

Hitting a linguistic wall, Shiro groans and thumps his head against the tree. As if the Olkari’s not-quite-magic knows what he’s doing and doesn’t want to enable him, the bark goes soft, catching Shiro instead of hurting him. It’s middling-level annoying, but by the same token, Shiro probably shouldn’t be whanging his head into things in the first place.

Staring at the sunlight through the leaves, he says, “If I’d thought that you wouldn’t have minded kissing me? Then yes, I would’ve told you the truth from the jump and spared you all the trouble. But you had a comprehensive list that you put thought into, and out of everyone you could think of? _Whose_ name, exactly, _wasn’t_ on said list?”

Hunk squeaks, then gives up another whining noise. “But why does that have to mean that I wouldn’t want to kiss you?”

“You were looking for the person you kissed while shit-faced. I was ruled out as a candidate before you asked for my help—”

“But why couldn’t that mean, y’know? I dunno, something _else_?”

“The path connecting the dots here isn’t hard to follow, Hunk. If my name wasn’t on the list, then it had to be because you didn’t want…”

In his own humble opinion, Shiro has a perfectly valid and well-constructed, logical argument in defense of his position. But everything starts to crumble like feta cheese when Hunk pushes himself off the tree and moves to straddle Shiro’s lap.

Everything trembles and quivers like it’s stuck in an earthquake when Hunk balls his hands up in Shiro’s vest.

Everything falls apart when Hunk swoops in and kisses Shiro on the mouth.

Without waiting for Shiro’s input or not, his hand leaps up to cup Hunk’s cheek. Not that he needs to give Hunk reason to stay in place, though. Hunk holds onto the kiss well past the point when Shiro’s lungs start whining in protest.

When they finally pull their mouths part, Shiro gasps so hard, it hurts. He pants for air until he feels like an exhausted dog who’s been running around in the middle of an especially sweltering August. All the while, Hunk arches an eyebrow and fixes Shiro with a dead-eyed, unimpressed expression.

“Y’know, for being such an alleged genius,” he says, eyes glimmering and an impish, playful smirk curling up his lips like smoke rising off a cigarette. “You are one dumb son of a bitch, Takashi Shirogane.”

“Hey, now.” Shiro winces, but at least his breathing evens out. “Admittedly? I deserve that. But let’s leave my late mother out of this, okay? She did her best for me, y’know?”

Fortunately, Hunk snickers at this horrifically awful joke, and rewards Shiro with another kiss.


End file.
